


Sparks

by thepatella



Category: NCT (Band), Real Person Fiction
Genre: Anxiety, Body Image, Contemplation, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Falling In Love, Falling Out of Love, Heartbreak, Let me self project my allergies thanks, M/M, Mark Lee is a Christian, Mark is allergic to gluten here, Other, Religion, Science, Talk of self love, This is just fanfic pls it’s not that deep, church, dont like don’t read, praying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27807724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepatella/pseuds/thepatella
Summary: He has known heartbreak and salvation and the humble joy of falling asleep safe and sound and he has known waking to tears, hushed voices outside in the hall creeping in from under the cracks of the door, side by side with the light. Mark knows that.
Kudos: 3





	Sparks

Mark thinks everything starts with sparks. 

There is an illusion that science and religion do not go hand in hand but he fails to point out the sparks when questioned, too nervous to turn his internal monologue into a dialogue, his thoughts much too empty to be his own. He knows those thoughts and who has put them there and they are not his own. Borrowed, like the Bible he takes from the pew each time he forgets his own, tucked into a drawer back home hidden under rosary beads he forgets hold love for him and him alone. He thinks it is selfish for him to be so in love with God and not himself for he is gods creation and yet there is just something lingering underneath his skin in the gas station bathroom when he checks his reflection and if it not vanity he cannot call it pride. His eyes are red and bloodshot, much like the worn leather of the Bible he takes every time, pages too familiar to help but trail his fingers over. The paper sheets are so thin, thin enough that he often has to remember to turn them without haste, with sweet, precious time, time that the lord has given him and for that, he thanks the lord. 

It all started with a spark. Creation, science, the universe, a Big Bang, the spark between his parents that ultimately lead to him. There is a spark of life that breathes its way into his lungs and out, and there is a spark in his eyes when he sees that boy—man, he thinks, he’s twenty now—man in the bodega looking around the bubblegum icecream cartons and he can see the spark leave his eyes when their paths cross. 

How very sad for him. 

Mark thinks that man might have trouble with some sparks, too. 

And there is much about himself that Mark loves. He loves that his nose has a sweet slope, barely hooked if you look, cute and button and he doesn’t think he needs to prove himself to feel manly enough anymore. He loves his eyes, dark, sparkly, so visibly Korean and he loves his round little teeth that should probably be sharper, to quote his dentist. He thinks that the masculinity of teeth has never been his problem and that healthy, whole teeth are all he could ever ask for and he is certainly privileged enough to have them. 

He loves the faded bleach of his hair, hair he dyes too much whenever he’s sad, whenever another boy breaks his heart and he doesn’t have the audacity nor the self absorption to act surprised. He thinks that he might be weak for praying for them and he loves that about himself, too. He loves how he is the perfect height to fight right into his parents’ arms and the perfect height to reach jars off of shelves and cups from cabinets and he loves that he is still small enough to climb on top of the washer to get the cookies he hides and pretends not to eat too much of. And with those cookies, he loves his skin, soft and clean, bumpy with the occasional pimple from leftover life, the moles that lie to the left of his cheek and neck, skin that breaks out when he eats too much pizza, skin that ripples over in pasty pink rashes when he eats too much gluten. Mark loves his lips, too, full to the brim and constantly chewed upon. 

He has always been on the edge but has never had the release of teetering over, tipping madly with the wind that pushes him into an embrace he calls anxiety. He never gets away.

He loves the softness and firmness contradicting his stomach, albeit flat, waist noticeable whenever he lifts up his shirt, tiny and delicate, something he’s never bothered to pay much attention to—but he loves his stomach. It’s where his cat lies every night, where his energy comes from, where his hyung places his head when he is much too low to play high and mighty and they swing back and forth between the epitome of creation and the lows of molecular boundaries that lie between them. He never gets a hold of those obstacles and he is often left slipping of his own devices. 

Yet, Mark has never known pain. 

He has known heartbreak and salvation and the humble joy of falling asleep safe and sound and he has known waking to tears, hushed voices outside in the hall creeping in from under the cracks of the door, side by side with the light. Mark knows that. But he also knows carpets and rugs and glass doors and wooden tables, rustic and sturdy, enough for him to sit on and play about, courtesy of the small scar near the back of his ear from childhood. He knows socks on stairs and pears in baskets and fresh fruit on fridge shelves and the breaking of bread over a table longing for peace but never seeing a treaty. 

Mark knows it all. 

And sometimes, with all the love he feels, full and brim, there are things he cannot say he adores so much. There is the bluntness of his voice that hardens all of its edges, lingering around like the rock candy he used to eat too much of in middle school, a hardness that defers strangers towards him. There is his perfectionism that robs him of all things he wants and chooses to believe in for his great fall is the fall of mankind, and he certainly believes in the forbidden fruit. There is his voice some days where he talks much too loud and too fast, cracking too much like the crackers he crushes beneath his fingers in his pocket when he senses another disappointment and another let down and he also does not love that his heart is so openly displayed on the sleeves he cuts off of all his shirts on hot summer days. He keeps them around despite all of the stains and tears they receive, patching them up just in case, much too afraid to get rid of them because then how will he remember the smell of the grass from summer camp or the very first prayer he’d ever learned? 

Sometimes, he hates that he is so hard headed he forgets that he is much too soft for these blows life hits him with. 

He feels a spark for all of those things, all of those new beginnings he strives for and falls short of and he knows that there is nothing more for him to say when he does. Except he knows it’s real and he can feel it, certainly. He feels God, too, when he is with him and he feels the love he has on and off but he cannot say those exist because he cannot see them and that is not enough for the eye of the beholder, who longs to be seen. 

Mark longs to be seen, felt, for it is something he’s never known before. 

  
  



End file.
